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Monday, July 9, 2012

Awhile back I had found a few wooden crates for around $7 each. The plan was initially to use them in the pantry, but I ended up steeling one to use as fantastic playroom book storage instead...

We had two crates, but I only used one for the book shelves, so we still had the other one to make work in the pantry.

They both received a coat of white paint at the same time, so that has been done for awhile now.

Our "green" shopping bag collection has been expanding. Since we tend to do our shopping a distance away {for better prices}, insulated bags just work best for us. They also work great for traveling to sports tournaments and picnics and road trips. For awhile now, they have been getting tossed on the floor of the pantry, but that wasn't the best solution {or even a good one!}

I knew the extra crate would be the perfect way to get those bags off of the floor and organized.

Since our pantry is a bit deep, we tossed a few casters on the bottom of the crate to make it easy to pull out without scratching the floor.

Yes, the crates were originally green. White was better.

And since I have been itching to label something with vinyl {it has been awhile after all}, and of course, to help the kids and hubs recognize the use for the crate, some vinyl was born.

Lovely and simple!

Then, I just placed all of the bags into the crate, and rolled it into the pantry!

It's the perfect size, and keeps goodies off of the floor.

It is nice to finally have a use in place for the second crate, and a simple solution for the floor of the pantry.

Don't you just love crates? They are so versatile! Anyone as obsessed with them as I am?!

62 comments:

This is genius!! I am envisioning skinnier crates like this to store my potatoes, and onions! Now to find some, maybe at a yard sale or Goodwill! BTW I freaking LOVE your blog I found it last week and nearly lost an entire workday just browsing and browsing.

I have a completely out of control "green shopping bag" situation going on in my kitchen! I have no idea how we acquired so many! You have inspired me to try to wrangle them all into a single container. Thank you!

Before we moved and space was limited in our home I used crates just like those to make a bed for my boys who shared a room. 3 - 4 crates lengthwise of the bed laying on their side, 2 - 3 at the bottom (depending on bed size) and then we screwed a piece of plywood to the top of the crates and topped it off with mattress and box springs. It worked great for my boys to store books and toys under their bed in a neat way.

I Love your use of the crate as the bookshelves! I think I want to do something similar in my next house! I would love to do it now, but we are moving next spring and I don't want to make more holes that I will need to patch! lol

LOVE it!! Off to get some now for my pantry and linen closet floor. Do you have DIY instructions on how to do the vinyl letters? Also, I saw someone asked above, do you have a template for your labels on your other bins, like your "produce" one, or can you share what program you use to make them?

The vinyl is all cut from my Silhouette machine and then just transferred over with transfer material {which typically can be purchased with vinyl}. The pantry basket labels are all created with Microsoft Excel using this tutorial: http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2010/08/you-asked-label-me.html

I wasn't but I may be now!! That is the perfect place/thing for my pantry and everything below!!!! I agree what program do you use? I have a cameo I haven't hooked up yet....but do you use a certain graphics program??

I created the vinyl with the design studio that comes with the CAMEO. It is as simple and typing out a word and updating the font and size. You have got to hook up that machine, it's amazing! You will be labeling everything before you know it!

Love the crates as book shelves! And the rolling reusable bag holder is genius! I just bought some IKEA spice racks recently to do the same (with books) and am building some book ledges for some longer book storage as well. I love how accessible they are to the kids!

I love crates! I have two that are hard at work right now, one is nicely tucked under a decorative chair in the living room filled with VHS tapes. And the other is tucked under our (open) bathroom sink corraling extra toilet paper, and laundry detergent. I've left them "naked" for years but maybe they need a cute facelift like yours!

This is a great idea and something I think I could implement in my mom's pantry! We have tons of bags on our floor in the pantry! Especially plastic bags....do you keep plastic bags? If so, how do you store them? I hate saying we have plastic bags, but sometimes we are in such a rush and we forget the reusable bags!

I love crates. I love this idea of wheels. I store a lot of my stuff at school in crates under my raised bed. I will have to put wheels on all of my crates!

I (sadly) have lots of plastic bags too :( I have a big plastic container that I bought at Target with cheese balls in it and refused to throw away once the cheese balls were eaten. I mod podged some pretty scrapbook paper to it and voila! Plastic bag storage that fits neatly on my pantry shelf and looks cute too!~Dani C

Love this idea! We somehow have accumulated quite the pile of totes and they are spilling over onto the floor of our pantry - not pretty. Cute and functional, especially with the castors! I will definitely have to try this.

Just made a crate for the pantry today after being inspired by your blog! I keep my reusable bags in a storage section of my car, but I needed a place to store paper goods, my bin for plastic bags and my bag for used batteries (once it's full, I drop them off at Whole Foods). The crate was the perfect solution--thank you!

I again totally love these ideas, and am definitely going to steal them in the near future. However, I am wondering if I'm the only one in the world with this problem... do you own a bunch of larger bags, like duffels or the like? I own a very large thirty-one bag and they all take up the floor of my already-too-small closet. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Crates with casters! Just what I've been looking for my pantry. I recently told my husband that I wish I had "boxes or something with wheels" for the very bottom of the pantry. Duh! Thanks again for the idea. :)

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